Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul, 24 September 2025 Wednesday, Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I Ezra 9:5-9 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Luke 9:1-6
God our loving Father, today I feel like Ezra, praying filled with shame sadness and hopes at how we can rebuild, repair and create in you something good for our country.
“My God, I am too ashamed and confounded to raise my face to you, O my God, for our wicked deeds are heaped up above our heads and our guilt reaches up to heaven… And now, but a short time ago, mercy came to us from the Lord our God, who left us a remnant and gave us a stake in his holy place; thus our God has brightened our eyes and given us relief in our servitude… in our servitude our God has not abandoned us; Thus he has given us new life to raise again the house of our God and restore its ruins, and has granted us a fence in Judah and Jerusalem” (Ezra 9:6, 8, 9).
Like Israel of Ezra's time, your know so well, God our Father how our country the Philippines had always been guilty of putting into power corrupt and evil men and women without any respect for you and your people especially the poor and suffering; as a nation, we have always been fragmented not only among each other but within ourselves, doing things contrary to your precepts that corruption in government had sunk deeper into wholesale looting of government money and resources at the expense of the poor and suffering.
We are all angry. Very angry, God our Father for the shameless people tasked to provide us with infrastructures and services that are either non-existent or substandard because they have looted the funds! But, help us, Lord, how we shall go from here in rebuilding our nation, our government, our institutions including the Church where some parishes as well as priests are beneficiaries of the stolen money; how can we repair not only the buildings but the lives of those destroyed and humiliated and how can we create a more just and humane society in Christ Jesus so that this systematic corruption is finally put into end. Amen.
Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Our Lady of Fatima University Valenzuela City ([email protected])
